SMART Goals and Campaigns

Rule # 8 is about setting SMART goals, making sure campaigns have set goals and been tracking their progress. SMART goals are those that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based. Sometimes the SMART criteria can be difficult to incorporate into social marketing simply because of the nature of social marketing campaigns: behaviour change. Considering that we as humans are constantly changing, it can be hard to quantify our behaviour. To address this, The End Violence Against Women organization has a great breakdown of how to use the SMART goals with respect to social marketing. For instance, being measurable does not mean numerical data only, sometimes qualitative observations can take the place of numerical data and provide great value to campaign decision makers.

One way to use the SMART goals to measure the success of a campaign is through the development of key performance indicators, or KPIs. As each campaign has different goals, what works as a KPI for one organization may not necessarily work for another. Each social marketing campaign we have looked at so far has had a different indicator to track its progress. For instance, Project Porchlight measures the number of bulbs changed to track its success. The Action for Happiness tracks the number of people who take the happiness pledge. The Swasthya Chetna handwashing campaign tracked soap use and soap consumption in target areas.

Have you noticed any other campaigns that track their success in a fun way? Leave your feedback in the comments below!